I'm a minister and a sexologist. Yes, those words do go together! I am also the executive director of the Religious Institute (www.religiousinstitute.org), a multifaith organization dedicated to sexual health and justice. I hope you'll join me in exploring the connection between sexuality, religion and spirituality, and the need for sexual justice in our faith communities and society.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Would You Change Your Sexual Orientation If You Could?

I'm guessing that most of my readers would say no. As sexually healthy adults, we affirm our own sexual orientation as well as those of others.

On a New York Times blog on Tuesday, John Tierney writes about intriguing new research that shows that the sexual orientation of fruit flies can be manipulated with drugs. He wonders if such a drug was available for humans, what would be the ethical considerations for its use?

Would parents be allowed to give the drug to children if they thought they might be gay? Might religious fundamentalist groups opposed to homosexuality advocate its use? Might straight women fed up with men (or vice versa) take it to change their orientation? And what impact it might have on the majority of folks who are Kinsey 2, 3, 4, and 5's?

Of course, as one doctor wrote on the site, it's a long way from fruit flies to humans. And another person asked why money was being wasted on this type of research.

Indeed. If we accepted that sexual diversity was part of God's blessing, would researchers be seeking ways to change it?

7 comments:

If the money used to conduct the research was public then that is a legitimate question. But if the money is private then who is the ultimate arbiter of how one person spends their own money ?

A few years ago a company tryign to maximize sheep reproduction conducted the similar research to understand homosexuality in 9 % of sheep. Profit is the answer to that question, and that's not a bad thing.

"If we accepted that sexual diversity was part of God's blessing, would researchers be seeking ways to change it?"

If ALL researchers accepted it, probably not. I'm not sure of the number of scientists that believe sexual diversity is part of gods blessing, or even the % that believe a god exists. This i guess we can attribute to the blessed diversity of human thought.

I think the point is that we can NOT choose. Where we fall on the bell curve of human sexuality, in terms of interests and frequency for our particular desires, is sort of hard wired; is it not. I think the real challenge is "can we accept our own sexual interests and allow others to accept and practice theirs?"

Toonhead, Kinsey developed a 0 - 6 scale on sexual orientation...0's are 100% heterosexual, 6's are 100% homosexual...consistently same or other sex oriented in behaviors, attractions, emotions, fantasies, love, and so on. Kinsey's 1 - 5's are bisexual to different degrees, a 3 is ambisexual, equally prefering people of both sexes. Hope that clears things up.

Toonhead, Kinsey developed a 0 - 6 scale on sexual orientation...0's are 100% heterosexual, 6's are 100% homosexual...consistently same or other sex oriented in behaviors, attractions, emotions, fantasies, love, and so on. Kinsey's 1 - 5's are bisexual to different degrees, a 3 is ambisexual, equally prefering people of both sexes. Hope that clears things up.

"If we accepted that sexual diversity was part of God's blessing, would researchers be seeking ways to change it?"

I don't know, but I hope so.

Let me tell you why.

I'm bisexual and quite happily so. I work at a GLBTQ bookstore. I, obviously, feel there's nothing wrong with being GLBTQ.

However, I'm all about choices.

I just hope that by the time we have the choice to choose our sexual orientation, our society is such that noone would feel pressured in any way to be any particular orientation. I think it would be interesting to try various sexual orientations. I sometimes have problems relating to monosexuals, not understanding the more rigid sexuality they feel. I'm curious to see what it would be like to be a lesbian. I'm also all for the ability to change one's sex when one wants to. I'm curious what it's like to be a gay man. I'm curious what it's like to be intersexed. I'm curious what it's like to be a straight man.

I hope that we do find a way to change sexual orientation. But I hope it happens at a time where it will bring about greater sexual diversity to the world, instead of being used to encourage or, God forbid, enforce, sexual uniformity.